science
Scientists say taurine, present in meat, may extend life
Taurine — a nutrient present in meat, fish, and taken as a supplement — extends life and improves health in a variety of animal species, scientists say.
Taurine levels fall with aging in animals, including humans, reports BBC.
Also read:Balanced policy needed to improve quality of nutrition intake: Speakers
Experiments on middle-aged animals revealed that increasing taurine levels increased life span by more than 10% and enhanced physical and mental health.
According to the researchers, taurine may be a "elixir of life," although supplementing amounts in humans has not been explored.
As a result, scientists at Columbia University in New York advised against purchasing taurine tablets or energy drinks containing taurine in an attempt to live longer.
Also read: Beetroot: Nutrition, Health Benefits, Doses, Side Effects
The animal study, on the other hand, is the most recent advance in the search for strategies to slow the aging process, said the report.
This study began by analyzing chemicals in the blood of various species.
"One of the most dramatically degraded [molecules] was taurine," researcher Dr Vijay Yadav said. The levels were 80% lower in the elderly than in the young.
Taurine is almost non-existent in plants. So the vitamin originates from either animal protein in the food or is produced by the body.
Also read: Top brain foods for studying and exams
And the study team has been attempting to figure out its involvement in aging for the past 11 years, added the report.
'Improved memory'
A daily dosage was given to 14-month-old mice, which is roughly the age of 45 in people.
Male mice lived 10% longer, females 12% longer, and both looked to be in better condition, according to the findings published in the journal Science.
"Whatever we checked, taurine-supplemented mice were healthier and appeared younger," Yadav said.
"They were leaner, had an increased energy expenditure, increased bone density, improved memory and a younger-looking immune system."
The researchers examined 12,000 participants and discovered that those with higher levels of taurine in their blood had better overall health.
They claim that if the data from mice were applied to humans, it would be the equivalent of an extra seven to eight years of life.
However, genuine clinical studies — in which some patients are given the nutrient and others a placebo pill — will be required to see whether any effect can be found.
Differences in human biology may prevent taurine from functioning, or there may be an evolutionary rationale for levels to decline with age. Current data demonstrates that taurine is safe, despite the fact that energy drinks have been on the market for decades.
Alzheimer's drug gets FDA panel's backing, setting the stage for broader use
Health advisers on Friday unanimously backed the full approval of a closely watched Alzheimer's drug, a key step toward opening insurance coverage to U.S. seniors with early stages of the brain-robbing disease.
The drug, Leqembi, received conditional approval from the Food and Drug Administration in January based on early results suggesting it could slow Alzheimer's progression by several months. The FDA now is reviewing more definitive results to decide whether the drug should receive the agency's full endorsement.
Also Read: Alzheimer’s drug approval ‘rife with irregularities’: Probe
The decision carries extra significance because insurers have held off on paying for the infused treatment until it has full FDA approval.
The FDA panel of outside advisers voted 6-0 that a large company study confirmed the drug's benefits for patients with mild or early Alzheimer's. The nonbinding vote amounts to a recommendation for full approval, and the FDA is scheduled to issue a final decision on the matter by July 6.
The FDA's initial OK for Leqembi came via the agency's accelerated approval program, which allows early access to drugs based on laboratory or biological measures suggesting that they might help patients. The drug, marketed by Eisai and Biogen, helped clear a brain plaque that is a hallmark of Alzheimer's.
Also read: Drug slows Alzheimer's but can it make a real difference?
The FDA panel reviewed more recent data from an 1,800-patient study in which people taking the drug showed a modestly slower rate of decline on measures of memory, judgment and other cognitive tests.
"For an illness like this where we don't have very much, these are meaningful changes for patients with Alzheimer's," said Dr. Merit Cudkowicz of Harvard Medical School. "A couple more months in the highly functional state is really meaningful."
Drugs approved via the accelerated pathway can technically be withdrawn by the FDA if their benefits aren't confirmed, though regulators rarely take that step. Gaining full approval allows medications to stay on the market indefinitely.
Normally the process of converting an accelerated approval attracts little attention, and FDA rarely convenes its advisers to weigh in on such decisions.
But concerns about the cost and effectiveness of new plaque-targeting drugs like Leqembi have attracted new scrutiny to the process from academics, members of Congress and health insurers.
Also Read: Alzheimer's Disease: Symptoms, Causes, Preventions
Medicare, the federal health plan that covers 60 million seniors, has essentially blocked coverage of Leqembi and a similar drug, Aduhelm, pending full FDA approval. That policy, which has little precedent, was announced last year amid concerns that Aduhelm, priced at $28,000-a-year, would drive up costs for Medicare recipients.
The federal program provides health insurance for the vast majority of people with Alzheimer's, and private insurers tend to follow its lead.
Leqembi is priced similarly at $26,500 per year and the handful of patients who have received it to date have mainly had to pay out of pocket.
Facing pressure from Alzheimer's advocates and patients, Medicare's administrator, Chiquita Brooks-LaSure, has made clear the program will immediately begin covering the drug if it gets FDA's full OK.
But last week she announced extra requirements even after Medicare coverage begins: All patients receiving the drug will need to be enrolled in a federal registry to track Leqembi's safety and effectiveness. That approach is occasionally used for complex new medical devices, but rarely for drugs.
The move was criticized by advocacy groups, including the Alzheimer's Association, which has lobbied the federal government for months to begin paying a drug that they say could potentially help many thousands of Americans.
Leqembi is the first drug that's been convincingly shown to slow Alzheimer's by targeting the underlying biology of the disease. The delay in progression amounts to about five months, and some experts disagree on whether that difference is enough to meaningfully improve people's lives.
But most FDA panelists were impressed by Eisai's results, which they said showed significant differences in patients' cognitive abilities and functionality, as well as reduced burden for caregivers.
The study tracked patients for 18 months using a scale measuring key indicators of cognitive function. At the end of the trial, patients receiving Leqembi declined more slowly — a difference of less than half a point on the scale — than patients who received a dummy infusion.
The drug was also associated with potentially serious side effects, including swelling of the brain and small bleeds in brain vessels.
Three patients taking Leqembi died during the study, two after experiencing a stroke linked to brain bleeding. But FDA reviewers said it was unclear whether the drug played a role in the deaths due to other underlying factors affecting the patients, including the use of blood-thinning medications that can increase the risk of bleeding.
"There are adverse effects," said Dr. Robert Alexander of the University of Arizona, who chaired the panel. "But they're monitorable and I think the benefit is clear."
China launches new crew for space station, with eye to putting astronauts on moon before 2030
China launched a new three-person crew for its orbiting space station on Tuesday, with an eye to putting astronauts on the moon before the end of the decade.
The Shenzhou 16 spacecraft lifted off from the Jiuquan launch center on the edge of the Gobi Desert in northwestern China atop a Long March 2-F rocket just after 9:30 a.m. (0130 GMT) Tuesday.
The crew, including China’s first civilian astronaut, will overlap briefly with three now aboard the Tiangong station, who will then return to Earth after completing their six-month mission.
READ: China plans to land astronauts on moon before 2030, another step in what looks like a new space race
A third module was added to the station in November, and space program officials on Monday said they have plans to expand it, along with launching a crewed mission to the moon before 2030.
China built its own space station after it was excluded from the International Space Station, largely due to U.S. concerns over the Chinese space programs’ intimate ties with the People’s Liberation Army, the military branch of the ruling Communist Party.
China’s first manned space mission in 2003 made it the third country after the former Soviet Union and the U.S. to put a person into space under its own resources.
On the this latest mission, payload expert Gui Haichao, a professor at Beijing’s top aerospace research institute, will join mission commander Maj. Gen. Jing Haipeng, who is making his fourth flight to space, and spacecraft engineer Zhu Yangzhu.
SpaceX sends Saudi astronauts, including nation’s 1st woman in space, to International Space Station
Saudi Arabia's first astronauts in decades rocketed toward the International Space Station on a chartered multimillion-dollar flight Sunday.
SpaceX launched the ticket-holding crew, led by a retired NASA astronaut now working for the company that arranged the trip from Kennedy Space Center. Also on board: a U.S. businessman who now owns a sports car racing team.
The four should reach the space station in their capsule Monday morning; they'll spend just over a week there before returning home with a splashdown off the Florida coast.
Sponsored by the Saudi Arabian government, Rayyanah Barnawi, a stem cell researcher, became the first woman from the kingdom to go to space. She was joined by Ali al-Qarni, a fighter pilot with the Royal Saudi Air Force.
Also Read: UAE spacecraft takes close-up photos of Mars' little moon
They're the first from their country to ride a rocket since a Saudi prince launched aboard shuttle Discovery in 1985. In a quirk of timing, they'll be greeted at the station by an astronaut from the United Arab Emirates.
"Hello from outer space! It feels amazing to be viewing Earth from this capsule," Barnawi said after settling into orbit.
Added al-Qarni: "As I look outside into space, I can't help but think this is just the beginning of a great journey for all of us."
Rounding out the visiting crew: Knoxville, Tennessee's John Shoffner, former driver and owner of a sports car racing team that competes in Europe, and chaperone Peggy Whitson, the station's first female commander who holds the U.S. record for most accumulated time in space: 665 days and counting.
Also Read: SpaceX takes second shot at launching biggest rocket
"It was a phenomenal ride," Whitson said after reaching orbit. Her crewmates clapped their hands in joy.
It's the second private flight to the space station organized by Houston-based Axiom Space. The first was last year by three businessmen, with another retired NASA astronaut. The company plans to start adding its own rooms to the station in another few years, eventually removing them to form a stand-alone outpost available for hire.
Axiom won't say how much Shoffner and Saudi Arabia are paying for the planned 10-day mission. The company had previously cited a ticket price of $55 million each.
NASA's latest price list shows per-person, per-day charges of $2,000 for food and up to $1,500 for sleeping bags and other gear. Need to get your stuff to the space station in advance? Figure roughly $10,000 per pound ($20,000 per kilogram), the same fee for trashing it afterward. Need your items back intact? Double the price.
At least the email and video links are free.
The guests will have access to most of the station as they conduct experiments, photograph Earth and chat with schoolchildren back home, demonstrating how kites fly in space when attached to a fan.
After decades of shunning space tourism, NASA now embraces it with two private missions planned a year. The Russian Space Agency has been doing it, off and on, for decades.
"Our job is to expand what we do in low-Earth orbit across the globe," said NASA's space station program manager Joel Montalbano.
SpaceX's first-stage booster landed back at Cape Canaveral eight minutes after liftoff — a special treat for the launch day crowd, which included about 60 Saudis. "It was a very, very exciting day," said Axiom's Matt Ondler.
Ancient viruses can help fight cancer, scientists say
Scientists have said relics of ancient viruses that have spent millions of years hiding within human DNA help the body battle cancer, according to a BBC report.
When cancerous cells escalate out of control, dormant remnants of these old viruses are reawakened, according to a study by the Francis Crick Institute.
This resurgence of these old viruses “unintentionally” helps the body’s immune system by targeting and attacking the tumour.
The study – published in the journal Nature – suggested a correlation between increased lung cancer survival and the presence of B-cells aggregating around tumours, according to the researchers.
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B-cells usually manufacture antibodies in our body and are better known for their vital role in battling infections, such as Covid-19, BBC reports.
Although the exact functionality of these cells are yet to be identified, it was evidenced -- based on a series of intricate experiments using samples from patients and animals – that they are attempting to fight viruses.
"It turned out that the antibodies are recognising remnants of what's termed endogenous retroviruses," Prof Julian Downward, an associate research director at the Francis Crick Institute, told BBC.
Retroviruses have the clever ability to insert their genetic instructions into our own.
Read more: Cancer specialists for amendment of tobacco control law, increase in tobacco tax
Some of these foreign instructions have been adopted over time and serve beneficial purposes within our cells, while others are tightly regulated to prevent their spread, according to the researchers.
These ancient genetic instructions are no longer able to resurrect whole viruses but they can create fragments of viruses that are enough for the immune system to spot a viral threat.
"The immune system is tricked into believing that the tumour cells are infected and it tries to eliminate the virus, so it's sort of an alarm system," Prof George Kassiotis, head of retroviral immunology at the biomedical research centre, told BBC.
The antibodies stimulate other parts of the immune system that eliminate the "infected" cells -- the immune system is attempting to stop a virus, but in this case is eliminating cancerous cells, according to Professor Kassiotis.
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Meanwhile, Dr Claire Bromley, from Cancer Research UK said that the study adds to the growing body of research that could one day see this innovative approach to cancer treatment become a reality.
Did humans 3000 years ago have bigger brains than us?
According to an analysis of cranial fossils, human brains have reduced in size over the years. Scientists have even identified the possible time when the shrinkage started: Approximately 3,000 years ago, according to a BBC report.
The shrinkage, according to Jeremy DeSilva, an anthropologist at Dartmouth College in the US, would be roughly equivalent to that of “four ping pong balls”.
According to the National Geographic Society, agriculture emerged sometime between 5,000-10,000 years ago. Soon after the emergence of agriculture, civilizations, full of architecture and machinery started to emerge in various parts of the world. According to the BBC, the first writing also appeared at the same time.
However, one question that left the researchers scratching their heads is why exactly did the human brain start to shrink in size while there were extraordinary technological advances going on at the same time?
Apart from the reason behind this shrinkage, another question which hovers around is whether the size of the brain affects an animal's cognitive ability and intelligence.
According to DeSilva and his colleagues, it is difficult to know what prompts brains to get bigger or smaller over time. In their study, the researchers note that human bodies have shrunk over time, but not sufficiently to account for our diminishing brain size.
To understand the phenomenon, DeSilva and his colleagues sought inspiration from a very unlikely source – the humble ant, according to BBC.
At first glance, ant brains may appear insignificant compared to ours. They are approximately one tenth of a cubic millimeter in volume, or one-third the size of a grain of salt, and contain approximately 250,000 neurons. In comparison, the human brain has roughly 86 billion neurons.
However, some ant societies are strikingly identical to our own. Incredibly, there are ant species that engage in a form of agriculture in which they cultivate vast swaths of fungus within their colonies.
When DeSilva's team compared the brain sizes of various ant species, they discovered that those with vast societies had sometimes evolved larger brains, unless they had also evolved a preference for fungus farming, BBC reports.
This finding suggests that for an ant, having a bigger brain is important for doing well in large society.
It also suggests that more complex social systems with great division of labor might prompt their brains to shrink.
DeSilva believes this could be the case for humans as well.
"What if, in humans, we reached a threshold of population size, a threshold in which individuals were sharing information and externalizing information in the brains of others?" he told BBC.
One other reason which might prompt the shrinkage in human brains is writing, according to DeSilva. He questioned whether the emergence of writing could have influenced brain volume through “externalizing information in writing and being able to communicate ideas by accessing information that’s outside your own brain”.
Although these hypotheses are nowhere near conclusion, it could be a starting point to think about what might cause the “notable and relatively recent” reduction in human brain size, DeSilva says.
Another question which needs to be addressed is whether smaller brains mean humans became stupider.
A team of researchers in 2018 analyzed a vast amount of data collected from UK Biobank, a biomedical database that contains, among other things, brain scans and IQ test results for thousands of people.
Analysis of the data collected from 13,600 people found that a bigger brain was, on average, associated with doing slightly better on IQ tests but, crucially, the relationship was non-deterministic, according to BBC.
That means that there were some people who did very well on the tests despite having relatively small brains and vice versa.
New COVID origins data suggests pandemic linked to animals
International scientists who examined previously unavailable genetic data from samples collected at a market close to where the first human cases of COVID-19 were detected in China said they found suggestions the pandemic originated from animals, not a lab.
Other experts have not yet verified their analysis, which also has not appeared so far in a peer-reviewed journal. How the coronavirus first started sickening people remains uncertain.
“These data do not provide a definitive answer to how the pandemic began, but every piece of data is important to moving us closer to that answer,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus at a Friday press briefing.
He also criticized China for not sharing the genetic information earlier, adding that “this data could have and should have been shared three years ago.”
The samples were collected from surfaces at the Huanan seafood market in Wuhan after the first human cases of COVID-19 were found in late 2019.
Tedros said the genetic sequences were uploaded to the world's biggest public virus database in late January by scientists at the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention; the data have since been removed from the database.
A French biologist spotted the information by chance while scouring the database and shared it with a group of scientists based outside China and looking into the origins of the coronavirus.
Genetic sequencing data showed that some of the samples, which were known to be positive for the coronavirus, also contained genetic material from raccoon dogs, indicating the animals may have been infected by the virus, according to the scientists. Their analysis was first reported in The Atlantic.
“There’s a good chance that the animals that deposited that DNA also deposited the virus," said Stephen Goldstein, a virologist at the University of Utah who was involved in analyzing the data. “If you were to go and do environmental sampling in the aftermath of a zoonotic spillover event … this is basically exactly what you would expect to find.”
Ray Yip, an epidemiologist and founding member of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control ffice in China, said that even though the new findings weren’t definitive, they were significant.
“The market environmental sampling data published by China CDC is by far the strongest evidence to support animal origins,” Yip told the AP in an email. He was not connected to the new analysis.
Scientists have been looking for the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic since the virus first emerged, but that search has been complicated by factors including the massive surge of human infections in the pandemic's first two years and an increasingly bitter political dispute.
It took virus experts more than a dozen years to pinpoint the animal origin of SARS, a related virus.
The researchers say their analysis is the first solid indication that there may have been wildlife infected with the coronavirus at the market. Some of the samples with raccoon dog DNA were collected from a stall that tested positive for COVID-19 and was known to be involved in the wildlife trade, Goldstein said.
But it is also possible that humans might have first brought the virus to the market and infected the raccoon dogs, or that infected humans happened to leave traces of the virus near the animals.
After scientists in the group contacted the China CDC, they say, the sequences were pulled from the global virus database. Researchers are puzzled as to why data on the samples collected over three years ago wasn’t made public sooner.
Earlier this week, some of the scientists presented their findings to an advisory group the World Health Organization has tasked with investigating COVID's origins, Goldstein confirmed.
Mark Woolhouse, an infectious diseases expert at the University of Edinburgh, said it will be crucial to see how the genetic sequences from the raccoon dogs match up to what's known about the historic evolution of the COVID-19 virus.
He said that if the analysis shows the animal viruses have earlier origins than the ones that infected people, “that’s probably as good evidence as we can expect to get that this was a spillover event in the market.”
After a weeks-long visit to China to study the pandemic's origins, WHO released a report in 2021 concluding that COVID most probably jumped into humans from animals, dismissing the possibility of a lab origin as “extremely unlikely.”
But the U.N. health agency backtracked the following year, saying “key pieces of data” were still missing.
In recent months, WHO director Tedros has said all hypotheses remained on the table, while he and senior officials pleaded with China to share more data about their COVID-19 research.
The China CDC scientists who previously analyzed the samples published a paper as a preprint in February. Their analysis suggested that humans brought the virus to the market, not animals, implying that the virus originated elsewhere.
The paper did not mention that animal genetic material was found in samples that tested positive for COVID-19, and the authors didn’t upload the raw data until March. Gao Fu, the former head of the China CDC and lead author of the paper, didn’t immediately respond to an email requesting comment.
Wuhan, the Chinese city where COVID-19 was first detected, is home to several labs involved in collecting and studying coronaviruses, fueling theories that the virus may have leaked from one.
In February, the Wall Street Journal reported that the U.S. Department of Energy had assessed “with low confidence” that the virus had leaked from a lab. But others in the U.S. intelligence community disagree, believing it more likely it first came from animals. Experts say the true origin of the pandemic may not be known for many years — if ever.
NASA Webb telescope captures star on cusp of death
The Webb Space Telescope has captured the rare and fleeting phase of a star on the cusp of death.
NASA released the picture Tuesday at the South by Southwest conference in Austin, Texas.
The observation was among the first made by Webb following its launch in late 2021. Its infrared eyes observed all the gas and dust flung into space by a huge, hot star 15,000 light-years away. A light-year is about 5.8 trillion miles.
Shimmering in purple like a cherry blossom, the cast-off material once comprised the star's outer layer. The Hubble Space Telescope snapped a shot of the same transitioning star a few decades ago, but it appeared more like a fireball without the delicate details.
Also Read: Nasa issues second image of ‘Pillars of Creation’ taken by James Webb telescope
Such a transformation occurs only with some stars and normally is the last step before they explode, going supernova, according to scientists.
“We’ve never seen it like that before. It’s really exciting,” said Macarena Garcia Marin, a European Space Agency scientist who is part of the project.
This star in the constellation Sagittarius, officially known as WR 124, is 30 times as massive as our sun and already has shed enough material to account for 10 suns, according to NASA.
Stone Age discovery fuels mystery of who made early tools
Archaeologists in Kenya have dug up some of the oldest stone tools ever found, but who used them is a mystery.
In the past, scientists assumed that our direct ancestors were the only toolmakers. But two big fossil teeth found along with the tools at the Kenyan site belong to an extinct human cousin known as Paranthropus, according to a study published Thursday in the journal Science.
This adds to the evidence that our direct relatives in the Homo lineage may not have been the only tech-savvy creatures during the Stone Age, said study author Rick Potts, director of the Smithsonian’s Human Origins Program.
“Those teeth open up an amazing whodunit — a real question of, well, who were these earliest toolmakers?” Potts said.
The tools date back to around 2.9 million years ago, when early humans used them to butcher hippos for their meat, the researchers report.
Older stone tools have been found in Kenya, dating back to around 3.3 million years ago, long before our own Homo ancestors appeared. Those tools were a bit simpler and so far have only been found in one spot, said Shannon McPherron, an archaeologist at Germany’s Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology who was not involved with the study.
The latest discovery matches up with a much bigger tradition known as the Oldowan toolkit. These same kinds of tools show up across Africa and beyond during more than a million years of prehistory, Potts said, showing they really caught on among early humans.
They held a rock in one hand and hit it with another stone, chipping off thin, razor-sharp flakes, explained anthropologist Kathy Schick of the Stone Age Institute in Indiana, who wasn't involved in the research.
With the rocks and flakes, early humans could slice and crush a wide range of materials, said lead author Thomas Plummer, an anthropologist at Queens College of the City University of New York. And the tools from the Kenya site — likely the most ancient Oldowan tools found to date — suggest this gave them an advantage in a key area: eating.
The site, known as Nyayanga, is a lush, hilly landscape on the shores of Lake Victoria. Since starting excavations there in 2015, researchers have found a trove of artifacts and animal bones, along with the two Paranthropus teeth.
Slice marks on several hippo bones show they were cut up for their meat, which would have been eaten raw as a hippo steak tartare, Plummer said. The early humans also likely used their tools to break open antelope bones for their fatty marrow inside, and to peel the outer rinds of tough plant roots, the authors concluded.
“Stone tools are allowing them, even at this really early date, to extract a lot of resources from the environment,” Plummer said. “If you can butcher a hippo, you can butcher pretty much anything.”
In the past, it was easy to assume that our direct ancestors were the ones using these tools, Plummer said. But the teeth make it hard to rule out that other early humans were picking up tools of their own, researchers said — even extinct cousins like Paranthropus, with their big teeth and small brains.
The mystery will be a tough one to solve.
After all, we can’t say for sure whether Paranthropus was using these tools, or just happened to die in the same place, Schick said: “When we find hominin fossils with stone tools, you always have to ask, is this the dinner or the diner?”
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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
Green comet zooming our way, last visited 50,000 years ago
A comet is streaking back our way after 50,000 years.
The dirty snowball last visited during Neanderthal times, according to NASA. It will come within 26 million miles (42 million kilometers) of Earth Wednesday before speeding away again, unlikely to return for millions of years.
So do look up, contrary to the title of the killer-comet movie “Don’t Look Up.”
Discovered less than a year ago, this harmless green comet already is visible in the northern night sky with binoculars and small telescopes, and possibly the naked eye in the darkest corners of the Northern Hemisphere. It’s expected to brighten as it draws closer and rises higher over the horizon through the end of January, best seen in the predawn hours. By Feb. 10, it will be near Mars, a good landmark.
Skygazers in the Southern Hemisphere will have to wait until next month for a glimpse.
While plenty of comets have graced the sky over the past year, “this one seems probably a little bit bigger and therefore a little bit brighter and it’s coming a little bit closer to the Earth’s orbit,” said NASA’s comet and asteroid-tracking guru, Paul Chodas.
Green from all the carbon in the gas cloud, or coma, surrounding the nucleus, this long-period comet was discovered last March by astronomers using the Zwicky Transient Facility, a wide field camera at Caltech’s Palomar Observatory. That explains its official, cumbersome name: comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF).
On Wednesday, it will hurtle between the orbits of Earth and Mars at a relative speed of 128,500 mph (207,000 kilometers). Its nucleus is thought to be about a mile (1.6 kilometers) across, with its tails extending millions of miles (kilometers).
The comet isn’t expected to be nearly as bright as Neowise in 2020, or Hale-Bopp and Hyakutake in the mid to late 1990s.
But “it will be bright by virtue of its close Earth passage ... which allows scientists to do more experiments and the public to be able to see a beautiful comet,” University of Hawaii astronomer Karen Meech said in an email.
Scientists are confident in their orbital calculations putting the comet’s last swing through the solar system’s planetary neighborhood at 50,000 years ago. But they don’t know how close it came to Earth or whether it was even visible to the Neanderthals, said Chodas, director of the Center for Near Earth Object Studies at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California.
When it returns, though, is tougher to judge.
Every time the comet skirts the sun and planets, their gravitational tugs alter the iceball’s path ever so slightly, leading to major course changes over time. Another wild card: jets of dust and gas streaming off the comet as it heats up near the sun.
“We don’t really know exactly how much they are pushing this comet around,” Chodas said.
The comet — a time capsule from the emerging solar system 4.5 billion years ago — came from what’s known as the Oort Cloud well beyond Pluto. This deep-freeze haven for comets is believed to stretch more than one-quarter of the way to the next star.
While comet ZTF originated in our solar system, we can’t be sure it will stay there, Chodas said. If it gets booted out of the solar system, it will never return, he added.
Don’t fret if you miss it.
“In the comet business, you just wait for the next one because there are dozens of these,” Chodas said. “And the next one might be bigger, might be brighter, might be closer.”